Chapter Text
Odysseus and Penelope were probably too curious for their own good.
Second-reborn souls in Elysium, they’d spent a few millennia considering the temptation of the Isles of the Blest right beyond sight. They’d spent so long waiting for each other– longing in those half-breathed nights without another pair of lungs breathing in vitality opposite their forms. So many years spent together, yet they wanted more.
Maybe it was selfish to ask for more from their existences. (Who would be the first to cast blame?)
They followed each other at the end of it, when they were sick in those aged years. They knew their souls had held on too tightly for anything else. (That’s why Penelope held on, waiting-waiting-waiting those years on and on. She had thought, heart and soul ached, that if he had gone she would have slipped the next night forward with him. It had happened the other way around another 20 years passed.)
They’d met souls they loved in the afterlife, seen heroes long rested with light in their eyes and loose shoulders, unstained by the blood that coated their shining images in memory. As time went on, the number of people they knew slowed. In their place were people of different tongues, mouths forming unfamiliar shapes even as Hades’ kept their meaning clear.
The new areas forming grew unfamiliar, formed of metal and glass, shapes warping and twisting into what was undeniably modernity, but one that Odysseus and Penelope could never have dreamed of.
Sometimes they walked there, not tiring in their state of being dead and all that, to walk and talk and sneakily observe what was becoming of humanity. Odysseus loved the phrasing, hearing new words and riddles spill from the lips of the young new folk, watching as they carried bits of culture unconsciously with their tones and idioms. Penelope was more material: staying mostly quiet while observing the weave and cut of their clothes, the jewelry they wore, the housewares that filled their homes.
They didn’t know how many caught on to just how old they were, Odysseus’s clever mind catching up every rough generation so that he was certainly behind, but not by far. Penelope’s observations too had her well informed, though she kept her words to much fewer than her husband did.
Slowly but surely the amount entering Elysium slowed. Too many souls for the system, Odysseus mused.
Despite the wandering, the talking, the feeding of their curiosity, the both of them still longed.
Telemachus had never joined them.
Dread Persephone, when they asked over ages, gave a solemn look at the mist in the distance. (Their darling boy, the one held close to their bosoms for so long, was always so ambitious. His soul had run thrice through the second they held him in their hands.)
Elysium was nice. They had friends, things were fun, it should have been the end of it.
The two of them were too curious for their own good, and they loved their family perhaps a touch too much.
They stared down the river lethe, winding its way from Hades to Hypnos. The rustling of cypress trees bordering the river was all they could hear besides the murmuring of the river itself.
“Are you afraid?” Penelope asked, glancing at the shade of her husband.
“Not so much as I was leaving you on those other shores, the ones of our beloved homeland Ithaca, despite the long years since,” Odysseus replied. Penelope laughed.
Odysseus stared up from the waters, drinking in her appearance. This was the last of it he’d ever see, unless they were granted the ability to drink from the Mynemosyne and enter the Isles of the Blest with their son for their forever.
“Part of me wonders if I am to meet you once more,” Odysseus murmured. “The world is so vast. Unless we are to embrace, I do not think I could bear to love again.”
Penelope gazed at him, the corners of her eyes wrinkling.
“I’m not worried, dear. We are ὁμοφροσύνη. Homophrosýnē . When the gods tore the first people in two our souls separated for the first time,” Penelope murmured. “The Fates give blessings in turn as sorrows. We shall meet, no matter how long or how late.”
“Just as you say,” Odysseus said.
Servants of Hades arrived to lead their souls forward after they crossed. Odysseus and Penelope stood, walking hand in hand. The river was a thin thing here, and Odysseus walked through first, Penelope in hand behind him.
It was anticlimactic, submitting to the waters.
Two shades, flutters of things lacking form or color, were gently shepherded past the grove to where the light above began to seep through.
Two worn threads were picked up once more, edges slightly frayed from the time since being cut, and knotted into the tapestry once more.
A mere month apart, two babes cried, breaths stuttering, souls in slight shock.
Odysseus and Penelope born anew.
(Something wasn’t quite right.
Souls weren’t supposed to pass through the Lethe linked with another: for as Odysseus’ first foot stepped out, Penelope’s heel left the shore. With their souls so close, tied together for so long, Odysseus’ memories had fled the slightest bit over to Penelope, and her in return.
The Lethe could not wash them completely anew. Their souls carried deep rooted stains. Not complete, not enough to raise suspicion– all souls had their specific shapes that they were beholden to. But it was enough.
Enough for the owners to reach– looking for time that wasn’t there, someone who they knew they needed to meet— enough, just maybe, for the souls to see and read.
Just maybe enough to remember.)
—
Annabeth Chase is born on July 12th, her mother pulling a quiet babe into being from a week of intense thoughts and hearty conversation with Frederick Chase. Athena looks down at her daughter who is reaching out, eyes shut, squirming when she can’t find someone or something immediately there.
Athena wraps her in cloth, swallowing those pudgy infant arms. Frederick Chase wakes up to a baby in a crib he can’t remember by his bedside, his job mysteriously having already granted paid leave for the next five months.
He quickly learns that the radio or television distract his baby girl the most, not with cartoons or songs but steady long conversation.
Annabeth grows up in the backs of classrooms and museums, thumbing through books with diagrams and getting thoroughly upset the harder reading becomes. Annabeth’s dyslexia is diagnosed early, articulated around tears to the doctor at age four that the p’s become b’s and q’s and things flip themselves another as she watches.
When they leave the clinic they’re ambushed by a monster.
It is, unfortunately, nothing new.
Annabeth should not attract as many monsters as she does, being a young child who has never been told about her heritage. Frederick muses that Annabeth might never need to be told: she seems smart enough to recognize it on her own.
In the few months that Annabeth is allowed at daycare or day camps, she shows herself to get along well with the other kids. Annabeth loves to talk, and while she comes across as a bit of a know-it-all, she also wrestles and runs with the best of the boys and draws and does hair with the girls, so she gets away with it.
They visit the larger Chase family every year, Annabeth and Magnus playing well together while the adults talk (and argue, loudly.)
Annabeth gets along with pretty much everyone but her stepmother. Even little Robert and Matthew (whom Annabeth calls by their full names, always,) are held with careful hands when they are born. Annabeth doesn’t hold them much besides that, but she stands nearby to watch them every chance she gets. The twins are never allowed close to choking hazards on the floor. Frederick and his wife are initially wary when Annabeth chooses to stay in the nursery while the twins nap, sitting with an architecture book in the nursing chair, but their suspicions are eased when they hear a clumsy childish attempt at a lullaby coming from the cracked door.
Annabeth will make a wonderful mother some day, they think, smiling into a glance they share.
That winter, as temperatures dip into the 50s, monster attacks increase. They were occasional, mostly brushed off as childhood fantasy before but they become more real each day, as damages and injuries start piling up. It only takes one clawing at the nursery window before Annabeth seems to swear to never set foot in there again.
Frederick knows she’s not making the stories up (for how else could she have been given to him?), but Helen does not. The tension in the house rises, and Frederick slowly stops standing up for Annabeth, if only to save his new marriage. The air reeks of betrayal.
It’s a warm spring day, and the Chase family packs into the car. Annabeth sits in the far back of the minivan they bought quickly after having twins. Despite the middle seat being the smallest, she sits there of her own volition, legs stretching into the empty space where they’ve removed the middle seat of the 2nd row.
Bobby and Matt are rear facing still, as Helen wants to wait until they’ve fully outgrown their chairs before they buy them forward facing seats. The twins are low in both their growth and weight percentiles, but given that they’re twins, it isn’t the most concerning. Annabeth leans forward as much as her booster seat allows, keeping an eye on both of them as they play.
Frederick and Helen keep up light conversation about little in particular, Frederick navigating winding roads as they drive to the beach. Despite living in Virginia, close to the beach, they rarely went. The twins had actually never been.
There were plenty of reasons: Frederick himself had a lot of commuting, what with assistant teaching and doing research for various universities in Virginia to driving up to New York to visit family in Boston or check in at the West Point Military Academy. It also wasn’t the safest thing in the world, the ocean, and what little Frederick knew of mythology said he should be wary of it.
Then again, Frederick’s own experiences with the ocean were quite pleasant. Annabeth had managed to miss most trips, so she likely didn’t remember the last time she visited the ocean as a baby. It’d be a new and fun experience for them to bond as a family.
They soon were driving through the town, navigating parking at the beach. It was still spring, so the crowds weren’t out in full force, but the day was warm and locals were enjoying the sun and sand. They pulled into a parking spot, shuffling off to the bathroom to shimmy into their new wetsuits. Annabeth takes stutter steps the whole way there, watching the ocean warily.
When they’re all dressed appropriately, they walk down to the water. The twins run to splash in the surf, and Helen gives Frederick a long suffering look as she holds their hands and wrangles them out. Annabeth and Frederick set up their blankets and towels then– don’t move.
Frederick expected his daughter to be right there with the twins, as rambunctious as she usually is with as much as she loves hanging out with the boys– but she just stares out with an odd expression on her face.
It’s as if she’s stared out at the same water every day: familiar, routine, upsetting. Annabeth becomes in that moment, a fixture of the shore. She could have- must have, spent years looking out at cresting waves beating cliffs to sleep and submission. Her grey eyes demand something from the ocean, like it had taken her love and life with it.
Bobby comes running back, fists clenched with shells, and Annabeth’s gaze breaks.
“Hello Robert, yes, I do believe those belonged to oysters,” she says.
It’s nothing, Frederick muses. She has an old soul.
Bobby chatters on, Annabeth amuses him, and things are blissfully domestic until the twins attempt to pull her with them.
Annabeth doesn’t spit or shout, but she is firm. Even when Matt and Helen come up to see the fuss, Annabeth doesn’t relent, yanking herself away from their prying hands, a cold almost panicked tone entering her voice.
Helen gives Frederick a long suffering look over the heads of the three children, eyes saying look, look at this behavior, what do you want me to do? They let Annabeth guard the blanket, firmly away from the family playing tag in the waves.
The twins conk out on the drive back, sunburns starting to grow on the very tops of their shoulders and noses. Annabeth continues to flip through a book with diagrams, determined to read more about architecture.
Helen doesn’t strike up conversation from the front, just listening to the radio on low. The silence feels like damnation.
For the next three nights, Annabeth shrieks and complains of spiders in her bedroom. Hunting her, biting her.
Helen never finds anything, brushing the bumps off as mosquito bites– despite it being early in the season. She tells Frederick that they shouldn’t even buy Annabeth spider repelling items, so as to not feed the delusions. The lack of sleep gets to all of them, and the house feels colder than ever despite spring running in longer, warmer days.
The week after that, Annabeth is gone.
Seven year old Annabeth takes a bag of supplies and runs: surviving with her wit and help from her mother. Mere months before she turns eight years old, Luke Castellian and Thalia Grace find her in the rafters of a semi abandoned warehouse, headed north.
The group of three becomes a group of four, Grover appearing and bringing in a wave of answers, proof that they’re not all crazy.
Thalia isn’t “supposed to exist” even if it’s not her fault and Annabeth wants to scream at her sister, taken from her right before they were all supposed to be safe.
They are both claimed relatively quickly, not that it seems to matter much in wake of the crushing grief. Luke, already bitter, starts to retreat in towards himself. He pushes hard and fast at sword fighting, always seeking better.
Annabeth wants to be done with it all, but for her new lifestyle she cannot. The Athena cabin is just as familiar as it is bewildering: she gets deja vu more times than she wants to count, can almost picture a familiar face that was linked tightly with Athena, but the features elude her. A cousin perhaps? Something was always… off with Magnus and his family.
It didn’t ring true, but she can’t imagine what else it could be.
Something like sadness, like the grief Thalia sparked, rises when she looks at the bow. Annabeth chooses a trusty dagger to use when her enemies get a little too close, and practices archery away from the limelight whenever she can: even if they never feel right, feel like a match.
She reads as much as she can with the help of texts being in Ancient Greek and spends time in the crafts areas when she cannot.
Grover wallows and is sent to do menial tasks by the Council of Cloven Elders until they settle on his fate.
For years, Annabeth waits. She lingers in a state of not knowing quite what she wants and not daring to hope for what she does. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Luke leaves on his quest, comes back even worse. Annabeth grits her teeth at night and prepares herself to lose another brother.
She sits at the porch and watches “Mr. D” and the ancient trainer of heroes fall into routine card games, scheming and counting cards the whole time. Even as she quietly learns how to do the same, Chiron tells her she must wait even longer for a sign, for someone. "For your own good," his voice resounds, even in her head.
Duh, she wants to say, but can’t. I’ve been doing that already Chiron. I’ve been waiting for someone for my entire life. If you wanted to be helpful, you’d tell me who. Or why.
The Fates, as busy as they are, smile and pull her worn thread through another knot.
—
Perseus Jackson is born on August 18th, with the wind and raging storm outside accompanying his cries. He cries, flailing under the care of the nurses and does not settle until he lays on Sally’s chest. When Sally looks down at his scrunched up face and red limbs she swears that nothing in the world has looked as beautiful, not even the manifestations of the ocean her babe was born from.
Perseus is a quiet child, funny when he chooses to speak, but not popular. Even as a toddler, it was difficult to tell how he’d respond until he broke into a cry or laugh. He picks up words faster than Sally can keep track of, and loves using them.
When he’s just over a year, a snake sneaks into his daycare crib. He hugs it until it stops moving, but a panicked worker removes it before it dies.
Suddenly, the things Sally’s seen that have always ignored her are interested. It’s awful. She’d gotten used to seeing monsters no one else saw pass her by, but now they seem to notice the sea breeze Percy carries as he runs, playing as all children should be able to.
A cyclops appears outside his daycare.
Sally doesn’t know what to do. She wants to pray, but is scared of discovery.
Percy’s sharp blue-green eyes don’t miss her rising anxiety, as much as she hates it. He peers up at her as they walk to and from work and daycare, asking with a little lisp from growing teeth if she’s okay. Sally wants to break down and cry, but she can’t.
When Percy is five one of the other moms in the daycare invites him to an afternoon VBS at the local Catholic church. Sally is hesitant, as she has reason to be, but the opportunity is too good to pass up. With the time he spends there in the afternoons to evenings, Sally can pick up more shifts. Longer shifts, to make that much more money and stretch their savings that bit further for better programs, a better school.
She doesn’t quite know how, but it works. It makes life easier than Sally could’ve dreamed of. Percy is never attacked on the blessed soil, and something about the genuine Belief of some of the attendees seems to latch onto Percy’s scent. The monsters are deterred, their eyes sliding over Percy more often than not.
It’s a blessing in it’s purest form.
Sally might’ve not been religious before she was overrun with the world of gods and monsters, but she is now. Each Sunday and Wednesdays when they can, Sally and Percy pack themselves into pews. Percy’s ADHD can be problematic, but the older population brushes it off as boyish youth. He’s allowed to run around the children’s ministry when it’s open, and the regular standing and singing and kneeling and movement are leagues better than classrooms are at the moment.
She finds herself with access to more resources, with the charitable donations coming through the older, more wealthy church goers. Sally might’ve felt bad for deluding them into thinking she was as devout as they come, but Percy is safer. For him, she’d do anything.
Percy loves talking to everyone he can, especially the knitting circle. He watches as they string together pieces of cloth and gets a soft look in his eyes.
Percy approaches Sally, all of seven years old, in early December and asks for crafts for Christmas. When she asks if he’s sure he doesn’t want a larger skateboard or more things to play with his friends, he gets a determined look on his face and refuses.
After asking around, Sally hunts through every charity shop she can in the wealthy New York City neighborhoods. She unearths needles of various sizes, for crochet and knitting, and cheap sweaters from good materials that are fraying at the seams already. She pulls their threads apart, boiling them for good measure, and gifts Percy a hodgepodge of yarn and needles for that Christmas. He struggles through videos online and help from their knitting circle until the year after that, he gifts her her own sweater.
She wears it to their annual Montauk trip and prays.
It isn’t enough.
Percy is eight, and the scent of the church no longer lingers on his skin for long enough. He goes to boarding school and it helps, but he’s struggling. Hard.
His dyslexia and ADHD make it a bit of a nightmare. He’s just a little too poor and not quite smart enough to really fit in with anyone. He’s a good runner, but not into sports. He likes socializing with some of the art kids, but has too many detentions to join clubs.
Sally meets Gabe.
He enters their life and the monster attacks peter to a stop, but Sally can’t judge if it’s worth it. Gabe is humanity personified, and late at night Sally wonders if he’s more monster than man.
Percy gets kicked out of every school for freak reasons, and she can’t afford to keep him close anymore. Literally. Boarding schools are an adjustment, but it keeps Percy and Gabe separate and Sally prays that it’s enough.
When he’s home, Sally does her best to lessen the hours she works, taking Percy on long walks by the rivers that he loves. Montauk trips are a staple, the cabin welcoming them each year, but there’s something different about Percy at the ocean and Percy at the river.
At the river, he seems normal, if enthusiastic about pollution clean-up efforts and rocking with the natural currents.
At the ocean… he seems wary. It’s not enough to keep him from it, as he walks in the surf and makes sandcastles on the shore, but Sally wonders if telling him his father was lost at sea was a good idea. Each time he looks at the horizon, he looks to be on the brink of tears. Like the ocean stole from him personally– like it would prevent him from ever returning.
Sally wants to laugh at how impossible that is, knowing that the sea would bend to his whim as he grows because of course it would. She’s shocked he’s not tried already. All he does is make sure Sally stays safe. She doesn’t venture far in, with the incredibly chilly water just tolerable for her feet on a hot day, but even that seems to be too far some days.
Sally sends him to Yancy, which promises results for other troubled kids and at least some form of art for each grade and while he seems bright over the phone and during the breaks, it’s not enough.
Sally knows he’s coming home, even if he’s tightlipped about why, then she’s confronted with the fact that she’s run out of time in terrible awful certainty days later.
(Percy never once thought that those three old ladies held his string in their hands. He tells his mother they cut a string, never his, because that electric blue didn’t ring in the core of his being. It felt wrong. He doesn’t think anyone around him would ever understand that, though.)
It wasn’t enough. She drives as fast as she can, tries to lure the thing that she’s always been keen on ignoring, and feels magic swoop over her form with her son’s cries in the background.
Percy’s nature longs to escape, but his head knows that if he doesn’t get back now, it’ll probably be never. He fights, thrashing as he never has before but in a way that feels familiar, right, and kills Pasiphae’s Son.
Percy tugs Grover over into safety, the aching pull of grief weighing down his chest, a long-forgotten sensation sparked and given name.
He passes out, of course, but not before looking around. There are figures in the distance, buildings with distinct lines, and the sound of water and wind pounds in his ears with his heartbeat. I know this, I know you, it says. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long, Percy thinks, before promptly making acquaintance with the dirt.
A hand reaches, and two strings cross over for the first time in millennia. The beginning of the tapestry unfolds.